1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to aggregation (i.e. combination) of multiple router configurations from respective routers, configured for routing data at first data rates (e.g., OC-3), to a higher-performance router configured for routing the data at a second data rate (e.g., OC-12) at least equal to the aggregated data rate of the first routers.
2. Description of the Related Art
The growth of new services on the Internet (e.g., voice, video, etc.) that require high bandwidth and high quality of service (QoS) performance constraints has caused many network service providers to reach the capacity of their existing network infrastructure. Hence, the development of newer and more sophisticated network devices has induced network service providers to upgrade existing network devices with the newer, higher-performance network devices. In particular, the newer, high-performance routers that satisfy network service providers' demands for high density, service rich networks often have a higher capacity and enhanced operations that enable the network service provider to offer data services at a lower cost. Such highly-scalable routers may be designed to provide leased line aggregation at the edge of a service provider's network. A typical example involves a service provider that replaces its mid range routers at the network edge with a high-performance router that can aggregate the subscriber lines managed by the mid range routers into a single, high density port in the high-performance router.
However, the migration from multiple, mid range routers to a single, high-performance router often requires that the new, high-performance router be configured to preserve the integrity of the existing configurations of the mid range routers deployed in the network. Hence, a network engineer (i.e., administrator) typically will need to spend hours manually configuring the new network topology for the new, high-performance router, to ensure the new high-performance router does not lose any of the existing functionality provided by the existing routers. For example, multiple mid range routers that lease DS1 and DS3 channels to subscribers via prescribed time slots may be replaced with a single high-performance router having a line card that can terminate hundreds of DS1 circuits, all carried within a single fiber; in such a case, difficulties may arise in attempting to manually migrate the channel time slots from the multiple mid range routers to a single high density channel in the new high-performance router. In addition, the attempt to avoid the loss of existing functionality during migration can be tedious in cases where the new high-performance router does not support all of the same interfaces as the mid range routers. For example, the new high-performance router may not support interfaces such as Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN), High Speed Serial Interface (HSSI), or Fiber Distributed Data Interface (FDDI). Hence, manual migration of interface configurations is not only tedious and time consuming, but also increases chances of error.